


You Shouldn’t Have Come Here

by pencilguin



Series: Fictober 2018 [8]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: Bottom of the Well, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-28 07:19:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16718875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pencilguin/pseuds/pencilguin
Summary: Link goes down the well in Kakariko and has to face the horrors waiting for him there.





	You Shouldn’t Have Come Here

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on Tumblr as part of the Fictober 2018 challenge. Unbeta'd; I apologize for any mistakes that might still be in there. 
> 
> Content warnings: ... I really don't know how to put this. It's the bottom of the well. If you've played the game, you know what's down there.

_You shouldn’t have come here._

Into the darkness he takes his first step, out of the little cone of light that’s shining down all the way from the entrance of the well. All this way it has made the descent along with him into the murky shadows at the bottom, the walls and the floor still glistening with the remnants of the water that his instrument just drained. Only the light of his fairy will accompany him now. He takes a deep breath and summons all the courage that the goddesses bestowed upon him, and walks, feet steady, head held high, into the deep dark unknown. 

_You shouldn’t have come here_ , the voices whisper in his ears, out of the corners and the edges of the room; like an air draft through the cracks in the brickwork; like the dripping of water from the ceiling; the scurrying of small creatures in the dark, maybe harmless, maybe not. _You shouldn’t have come here_ , they say, _this is no place for you, living young Hylian._

He jumps as the light of his companion flickers over a shape in the corner. A skeleton, sitting with little grace, yet almost at peace. Glistening, flawless rows of white teeth trapped in a smile for eternity. A whisper reaches the boy’s ears, or maybe it’s already in his head. _Turn back, foolish child! Turn back now, or you will be damned._ He swallows and tears his eyes away. He cannot turn back, he knows, it is his destiny, and this place is part of his path. He walks on, into the next room. 

Bones crunch under his feet, piercing holes into his spirit. _You shouldn’t have come here_ , it sounds, the whispers coming out of the bloodstained walls and the invisible holes in the ground and the crosses and chains dangling from the ceiling, _whatever happens to you in here, it is on you alone. You shouldn’t have come here; you have been warned._

The creatures of the shadows embrace him with open maws. He stumbles out of their grip, escapes the deadlock of their fangs. The ground opens below him and he stumbles down, deeper, further, until the brickwork is gone and he feels old soil and bedrock between his fingers and under his knees. 

The ReDeads are standing and crouching around a pool of acid, the stench blinding all his other senses, except for one; the one that tells him of their chanting, a haunting canon of the words, _You shouldn’t have come here. This is no place for one so full of life as you. Any life that comes down here will be stripped away._ He tries to get around them without drawing their attention but it doesn’t work. A singsong of screeches erupts and freezes the blood in his veins. All he can do is struggle free and run, run, run, back up the half-decayed ladder to the upper floor, where the horrors are the same; they just look more civilized. 

As the little boy and his fairy stumble through the buried remnants of Hyrule’s history of bloodshed and shame the voices get smaller and so do the rooms, echo chambers that amplify their admonishments, making them almost sound like pleas. _You shouldn’t have come here_ , they are saying, begging, more haunting and insistent with every step he takes further into the depths, away from the goddesses’ light and into the worlds that were meant to stay hidden, disturbing the veils that were not meant to be lifted. _Turn around and leave now or your soul will be lost._

At last he reaches what he came here for, with toxic mud in his hair and blood on his skin, some of which is his own and some of which isn’t, with a cold seeped into his bones that will never stop making him shiver again, and a stench on the tip of his tongue that won’t ever wash away. With trembling fingers he reaches for the magical, crystal eye that will reveal what is hidden. 

He raises it to his face and looks through it, and that is when the real horror finds him. 

_You shouldn’t have come here._


End file.
